"Why don't you fix your little problem and light this candle."

[Deep13]

So said Alan Shepard on May 5, 1961 shortly before launch and after hours of delays. 50 years of Americans in space.

[Richardo]

1. nice tribute

:patriot:

[Brickbat]

2. That's an awesome quote; I hadn't heard it. K&R for American expertise, drive, know-how, research,

curiosity, and around can-do.

[Deep13]

6. The engineers and administrators were usually a lot more cautious than the astronauts.

When NASA administrators decided they ought to skip a lot of testing and send Apollo 8 to the moon without a lunar module to serve as a back-up engine (like they used it for on Apollo 13) and without the extensive testing of the Saturn V or spacecraft, they wondered how to sell the idea to mission commander Frank Borman. They needn't have worried. After outlining the idea, Borman said, "Okay, let's go."

[Warren DeMontague]

12. Really? You never saw "The Right Stuff"?

GREAT movie.

[Brickbat]

13. It's shameful that I haven't, I know.

:o

[Warren DeMontague]

14. It's a total classic.

If you're anything close to the space nerd that I am, you should check out HBO's "From The Earth To The Moon", too. Really, really well done.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120570/

[guitar man]

19. One of the best movies ever

Levon Helm was surprisingly good as Jack Ridley too :)

[rurallib]

3. There sure was a lot going on in 1961 - who was president

when all this was happening?

[RT Atlanta]

5. From the ground up

edited to add video link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0OurosNBFo

[Deep13]

7. We chose to go to the moon, not because it was easy, but because it was hard. nt

[RT Atlanta]

4. K&R for American ingenuity

Interesting side-bar from the first suborbital hop (from Wikipedia):

Shortly before the launch, Shepard said to himself: "Don't fuck up, Shepard..."<4> This quote was reported as "Dear Lord, please don't let me fuck up" in The Right Stuff,<5> though Shepard confirmed this as a misquote. Regardless, the latter quote has since become known among aviators as "Shepard's Prayer."

[Hissyspit]

8. Just to add: Shepard died of leukemia in 1998.

His wife died 5 weeks later.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

9. "Dear Lord....please don't let me fuck up."

I've said that prayer many a time.

Didn't grow up in the Space Race but lived it vicariously through The Right Stuff.

Godspeed Alan!

[rurallib]

10. Shepard's quote on his thoughts before lift off.

I don't have a citation for this, but it has stuck in my head like glue from the day I heard it as a kid:
Interviewer: What thoughts crossed your mind as you sat in that rocket preparing for blast-off?
AS: I was thinking that every bit of this rocket was built by the lowest bidder.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[krispos42]

22. There's one for the shuttle, too

Something along the lines of:

"I'm sitting in the Orbiter. It's bolted to a tank filled with 700 tons of liquid oxygen and 120 tons of liquid hydrogen, which in turn has a pair of 550-ton Roman candles strapped to it. I've got 5.2 million pounds pounds of thrust, no ejection seat, and the whole thing was built by the lowest bidder."




Or maybe something blues-brother-ish...


"It's 106 miles to orbit. We've got a fuel tank of hydrogen, a pair of boosters, LOX, and no ejection seat."

"Hit it".

[Warren DeMontague]

11. The guy went on to play golf on the moon. How many can claim THAT? K&R

:kick:

[ieoeja]

15. When I was a kid, we were going to the moon. Today, they tell me we can not afford social security.

30+ years of the Reagan Revolution.

[Gemini Cat]

18. We also believed anything was possible.

Back then it really did seem like the sky was the limit. Now? Not so much. We have lost so much.

[Deep13]

16. "No hand ball playing in here."

The Mercury capsule was so small that rather than getting in, one had to put it on. On the morning of Alan Shepard's flight, John Glenn put a sign inside the capsule that read, "No hand ball playing in here."

[deaniac21]

17. Wasted money that could have gone to the poor.

[neverforget]

20. seriously?

[Odin2005]

21. Bullshit.